


what death leaves behind us

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, Consensual Possession, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Force Ghost Kylo Ren, Force Ghost(s), Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Supreme Leader Armitage Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 01:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19686397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: Supreme Leader Armitage Hux never expected to see his dead lover again.Yet on the eve of the Resistance's complete destruction at his hands, Kylo Ren appears to Hux, reopening old wounds and bringing the selfish desires of both ghost and man to the surface.





	what death leaves behind us

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the KyluxXOXO Summer Fest, for the first week's board. I made a bingo with "ghost," "tent," and "dark." Kind of ended up with a weird, sad fic that explores both Kylo and Hux's suffering after a tragedy...
> 
> Full disclosure...I don't know how either Force Ghosts or Force Corruption/Entropy works. I just kind of made the concept into something that suited the story. I hope any mistakes aren't too bad or jarring.

Supreme Leader Armitage Hux didn’t particularly enjoy commanding ground offensives.

At the very least, he could do without setting foot on the war-torn planets himself. 

In the past, he had put others at the helm of such vital invasions, but circumstances had greatly changed in the last couple years, and he knew that a great leader had to adapt to and overcome even the most undesirable and frustrating challenges in order to come through victorious. So he soldiered onwards, supervising his troops directly. After all, Hux wasn’t about to let his aversion to planet-side campaigns get in the way of the Resistance’s complete and utter decimation. 

They were on their last legs. Hux had wiped out their fleet and destroyed their bases on all other planets in the galaxy. Even now, they’d been reduced to guerrilla warfare, fleeing his troops on speeders and light shuttles and trying to ambush them whenever they had a chance. But Hux knew they couldn’t hold out much longer. At this point, it was a matter of who could outlast who—and with his superior numbers and resources, Hux knew he’d catch up with them soon enough. They couldn’t outrun his vengeance forever.

He would force them to pay for their crimes. 

Thus, Hux felt oddly at ease when he returned to the encampment, just as the planet Samsara’s triplet moons began to properly rise in the sky. A quick debriefing with his most trusted generals later and Hux was ready to turn in for the evening. After a routine speech and a closing salute from each one of the gathered personnel, Hux retreated to his own tent, flanked on both sides by a pair of his elite guards, distinguished from the rest by their specialized armor, molded in a red that glowed in the floodlights bordering the encampment. 

The thick canvas walls of the tent kept out the elements nicely, not that there was much to protect Hux from at the moment. The night outside was still and clear, with barely even a light breeze to disturb the First Order banners draped about. The only sounds that drifted through the quiet, apart from Hux’s own heartbeat and easy breathing, were the measured _tamp-tamp_ tattoo of stormtrooper boots and the distant chirrups of the native insects. 

“Have either of you anything to report?” Hux asked as he turned smartly to his guards, hands tucked behind his back as he appraised their masked faces. Thanks to all his time working directly with the stormtrooper program—noting what inborn human behaviors remained as he molded them into warriors— not to mention interactions with the scores of other individuals in the galaxy who enjoyed hiding themselves in ghoulish headwear for some contrived reason or another, he’d developed a skill for reading body language and the modulation in his subordinates’ voices. 

“No, Supreme Leader. The perimeter is secured, morale remains high, and there’s no reports of any Resistance scouts for miles around,” the one on the rights stated. Hux scrutinized both guards for a moment, but found nothing particularly amiss in their posture nor tone. No reason to mistrust them for the time being. 

“Very well then. Dismissed for the rest of the evening,” Hux murmured, eager to be left alone to retire. The guards bowed their heads and turned, the entrance to the tent fluttering shut behind them. They won’t go far, as they were assigned to defend the Supreme Leader as he rested, but at least Hux won’t have to acknowledge them any longer. After a long day of commanding, he was more than ready to unwind and curl up in bed with some light reading. He had a couple of holobooks he’d really like to finish, and with the campaign progressing fairly well, Hux thought he was finally relaxed enough to properly absorb them. 

He shed both his embellished coat and the far humbler uniform underneath, hanging them side by side in the collapsible wardrobe. Even his grand tent was easy to break down and pack up if the entire encampment needed to travel with the movements of the Resistance. Though Hux hoped he’d be able to route them soon and eradicate the last threat to his power. Truth be told, he was growing tired of the ground offensive, missing commanding fleets and terrestrial armies himself from the relative safety and comfort of his flagship above. During the day, with particular clear skies, he could see her floating like an ominous anchor in the upper atmosphere, poised to ready more troops and lesser ships should Hux require them. He hadn’t thus far—he was fairly certain he could wipe out the last of the Resistance using only the forces he currently had planted on Samsaran soil. 

The automatic kettle spat out tea into the waiting mug at his voice command, filling the tent with the delicately sweet scent of blueflower blossoms. If Hux had to stay up all night reviewing battle plans he would opt for his usual double-strength Tarine, but considering he actually wanted to sleep soundly he'd swapped it out for one of the more palatable decaf blends he’d come across in his years.

Now clad in only briefs and a black singlet, Hux slid his robe about his shoulders and belted it loosely about his waist. The light chain around his neck softly _clinked_ with the movement, the interlocking rings dangling from it coming to rest atop his sternum. Hux cupped his hand to his chest for a moment, feeling the warm metal against the thrum of his heart, before he grabbed his mug of tea from the kettle and data pad from the side table and settled into his cot to read. 

Back on the _Vanguard_ , Hux slept in vast, sparsely decorated quarters. Quite a bit larger than the field tent but far emptier, certainly far too empty, many would say, for the Supreme Leader, for the man who was chasing down the last dregs of the Resistance, poised to bring the entire galaxy down under his boot. But Hux preferred it that way now. 

He used to tolerate more decor and lived-in disorder, back when his quarters had been _theirs_. But that had been a long, long time ago. He’d discarded anything easily disposable that brought back bad memories the moment he became Supreme Leader. 

Hux propped himself up on the mound of thin pillows and opened the e-reader in his data pad, resuming where he’d left off in his copy of _The Price of Empire: Decadence, Decline, and Rebirth_. The cot was comfortable but small, only big enough to fit one person with not much room for tossing and turning left over. Quite different from his bed aboard the _Vanguard_ , which was about the size of a conference table if he had to make a comparison. Hux had little use for so much room any longer, but with a war to wage furnishing his quarters had plummeted to the bottom of his list of priorities. He’d come up with a temporary solution, anyway, and filled in the unnecessary space with extra comforters and pillows until it felt less empty. 

Hux dimmed the lights with a murmured command, leaving only the lamp at his bedside set to full brightness. The data pad had its own backlight built in, but Hux preferred a bit of extra illumination. Easier on the eyes. Also his medic had warned him that if he continued to strain them he’d end up relying on bifocals before he reached forty. In Hux’s opinion, glasses weren’t exactly becoming of a Supreme Leader, so he didn’t want to put his vision in jeopardy.

He began to read, pursing his lips as he scanned through the chapter analyzing the events of the Galactic Civil War. He skipped around a bit, realizing some of the details might angry up the blood to the point where he couldn’t imagine going to sleep in lieu of escalating his existing battle plans. Wisely, he swiped a couple pages past the Siege of Arkanis, settling on the more emotionally removed retelling of the Battle of Anx Minor that proposed in hindsight what the Imperial Remnant could’ve done to turn the tide of the skirmish in their favor. Hux found himself nodding along to the author’s examination, filing snippets of useful advice and adages into his mental cabinet for later retrieval. He liked to think he was succeeding where all other powers had failed before him—but only time would tell if his conquests could endure. 

Hux first heard the odd sound while reading a passage drawn from a primary source—an eyewitness account of the battle by the venerable Gilad Pellaeon himself—but shrugged it off as nothing more than a misheard shout from one of his off-duty soldiers. Hux knew even the higher-ranked officers like to unwind with games of sabacc in their tents. But then it happened again—clearer, this time, enough so that Hux could make out his own name in the faded whisper. 

He rested the data pad in his lap and sat up, glancing around his tent. He furrowed his brows in irritation, wondering if there was a soldier amidst his ranks foolish enough to try playing a trick on their Supreme Leader. But as he stilled and listened to the world outside his tent, beyond the patrolling troopers and officers enjoying their before-bed leisure time, he heard it again. 

“ _Hux_ …”

The voice yanked at his heartstrings, causing his pulse to flutter. Hux’s eyes grew wide, hardly believing his own ears. He strained to listen for more but the voice trailed off, faintly echoing into the distance from where it had come. When Hux heard it again, his name this time ending in a questioning lilt, it seemed even further away. 

Hux rose to his feet and threw his data pad upon the bed. 

He would usually never let anyone see him in such a state of undress, but hadn’t the time nor care to pull on anything more than his boots as he rushed out of the tent. If his guards called out to him, surprised at his sudden departure, then Hux didn’t hear them as he wound through the encampment. Troopers and officers alike stiffened and stood aside as he passed, saluting despite his disheveled appearance and lack of uniform. Hux didn’t acknowledge any of them with even a cursory nod, instead numbly following the echo of the voice in his ears to the very edge of the encampment where the lowest ranks of the enlisted made their camp, where the civilizing glow of military clockwork gave in to the wild, guerrilla wilderness surrounding it. 

There, on the brink, Hux waited, listening, still trying to convince himself it had been nothing but a trick of the wind in his ears despite the stillness and silence of the night around him. He gazed out into the darkness, the trees barely illuminated despite the joint radiance of the three moons above, and tried to find familiar shapes in its depths. 

Just as he was about to turn around and retreat back into his tent he saw it—a mere flicker, at first, then something more. Something truly shocking.

A ghostly face, coalescing out of the darkness, out of the silvery glimmer of the light on the still leaves. Black eyes, like hollows in the trunks of trees, like hyper-dense voids in space. Lips Hux knew. A smattering of moles he still had mapped out in his mind. 

The sight hit Hux in the chest like a physical blow. He nearly wheezed and fell to the ground on his suddenly useless, numb legs. The face lingered for a moment, as if it knew Hux was there watching it, before it retreated into the foliage and disappeared. 

_Hux…_

Again Ren’s voice echoed in his mind. And it _was_ Ren’s voice, there was no point in denying it any longer. That was Ren’s voice, and that had been Ren’s face, and as the latter receded, voice trailing off into the depths of the forest, Hux knew he couldn’t let it slip away that easily. 

“Hold on...Ren, wait…” Hux mumbled as he staggered forward, sinking into earth not tamped down and squeezed dry by the marching troopers in the encampment. His heart throbbed with sudden anxiety and the rational portion of his brain commanded him to return to his quarters and stop chasing nonsensical visions, but Hux pushed both aside as he walked away from the edge of camp and into the encroaching forest. 

“Ren?” Hux called again as the trees closed in around him. As if summoned by his voice, the face appeared several meters in front of him, floating between two trunks thick as the shafts of fighter cannons. Only now a neck and shoulders flared out in veiled grey from beneath its chin, like roots spreading out from a sapling, giving the apparition a less grisly appearance than a mere floating head. Hux swallowed around the tense lump in his throat, and took another step towards it. 

But the vision shifted again, abruptly shrinking as it receded from his presence, even as more of its body started to materialize. Hux strode towards it but quickly realized it was fleeing from him, fading through the cover of the trees faster than he could keep up with it, so he upped his pace, then broke out into a sprint when the vision stayed out of his reach. Almost like it didn’t want to be caught. 

Hux’s footsteps slapped through the mud as he chased it, winding through forest that grew thicker and thicker the further he ran. Mud and rocks scuffed his boots, disturbed in his hurry as he slid down shallow embankments and hopped over fallen boughs. His robe caught on thorny bushes as he streaked past them, the sheer fabric ripping easily as he tugged it free and continued to pursue the vision, even as thin lines of blood bubbled against his skin.

“Ren!” Hux shouted, hands raised in front of his face to deflect the thin branches and sharp leaves whipping towards him. One glanced across his cheek, ripping a long scratch just below his eye, but he ignored it. “Come back here! Don’t you leave me!”

 _Not again_ , Hux said in his head, knowing if this was really Ren, he would eventually hear him and _stop_. 

But the vision didn’t pay him any heed and kept skirting just out of reach, expression impassive even as Hux screamed at it. His heart pounded and his chest hurt from exertion, whole body unused to such abrupt and frantic movement, but still he ran. 

Suddenly, just as Hux thought he’d lost the vision for good, he burst out of the forest, the open sky and yawning moons shining down upon him, but all he can see is _Ren_ , floating out before him with his arms opened, so close now Hux could practically reach out and touch him. His boots hit the cool, dark ground one last time, foot behind him lifting to breach the last distance between himself and his Ren, face shining with hope and relief and hair pale red in the dim light like a waning fire, and perhaps he would’ve done it, flung himself into Ren’s embrace without care.

If he hadn’t looked down, Hux would’ve let nothing keep him from his lover. 

But by sheer chance, Hux did look down. For a split second, mid-lunge, he glanced at the space below Ren’s feet and found nothing, no glimmer of moon on curved blades of grass nor worn away patches of dirt. Nothing but gaping, _empty_ void. 

Hux heart surged into his throat and he froze in place, toe of one boot grinding to a halt at the edge of the sudden drop-off, sending crumbled rock and sand cascading down the face of the cliff into the distant thicket of trees below. Far, _far_ below and no doubt beyond a survivable fall. Hux flung his arms out, desperately trying to keep his balance as he yanked his foot away from the edge and took a couple trembling steps back. It hit Hux a moment later, as he cupped a hand to his thumping heart and threaded his fingers through the rings dangling from his necklace, like he always did when he was nervous. 

Stars. He’d almost _died_. Almost sailed right off the edge of the cliff and plummeted down, down, into the darkness below. He probably would have perished before he even realized what had happened to him. 

If years of training hadn’t left him with a rock-solid composure, Hux would’ve collapsed on the spot at the realization of how close he’d come to falling to his death. Even armed with that his legs jellied, wanting to give out, but he managed to keep upright. He gazed down the rocky precipice, trying not to imagine what his body would’ve looked like broken and strewn about the sharp peaks of the trees below. 

Blood trickled from the scratch on his cheek. It stung as Hux blinked rapidly, vision swimming as he tried to reign in his startled breathing and pulled his eyes away from the cliff. He turned his head, looking back at the path he’d tramped through the forest. He couldn’t see any sign of life, not even the glow of the floodlights, Suddenly, he realized just how exposed he was out here, so far from the safety of his encampment or the cover of the trees. Even though he hadn’t fallen to his death, he could now spot any number of vantage points where a sniper could be positioned to take him out. Hux knew he needed to retreat back to a secure location, where he could try to forget how easily he’d been lured away from his guards. And yet he stayed—the Supreme Leader of the First Order, half-naked and white as a sheet—his eyes wheeling back around to fixate on the sight in front of him. 

To Hux’s surprise Ren’s ghostly form hadn’t vanished like the treacherous mirage it was when he turned back around to stare at it. No. It still lingered, floating just beyond reach, several meters past the edge of the cliff. As Hux watched it turned to face him head-on, now fully manifested and appearing almost solid, only slight vacillation in its form giving away its inherent transparency. Honestly, he looked more like a single still taken from hologram than anything else, as if Kylo was merely transmitting himself from a far off location, either for a casual chat or tactical meeting, but Hux knew that was impossible. 

Kylo Ren had been gone for three years. 

Hux ground his teeth, staring at the apparition. What was this, then? Some trick of the Resistance, perhaps, some last-ditch effort to cut off the head of the First Order now that it was bearing down upon them? He was completely exposed and alone at the moment, providing a perfect opportunity for any Resistance fighter lying in wait to snipe his brains out and kill the Supreme Leader for good. But could that really be? Hux didn’t think particularly highly of General Organa, but he wasn’t sure that even she could be pushed to sink so _low_. Ambushing his troops and utilizing cheap, unsporting tactics was one thing. Projecting an image of her dead son, all to lure Hux to that same fate, was something else entirely.

“What are you?” Hux shuddered, taking a step back as the image of Ren drifted closer, as if he didn’t trust it not to latch onto him and drag him back over the edge. “What do you want from me? Why did you...you tried to _kill_ me?”

It couldn’t _really_ be Ren, could it? It had to be nothing more than a trick, or a delusion of his exhausted, over-taxed mind. It had to be, there was no way—

“Hux…” Ren’s voice echoed around him once again, but instead of stopping there like an audio recording that’d run out and needed to be rewound, it continued on. “I’ve missed you so much…my general...my red star...”

Hux went numb. He remembered that endearment, that exact worshipful cadence. No mere shadow, no enemy-born illusion could replicate that. His heart choked in a sudden rush of mixed emotions. 

“It...it is you. Not just a figment of my imagination. It’s really you.” Hux exhaled, breath heavy and cold despite the balmy night. “That’s it, then. That’s just the ticket. You come back from the dead, and immediately try to kill me.”

When Ren didn’t bother to deny it, continuing to only float impassively in the air, Hux’s face contorted in fury. He took a couple more steps back, raising his fist and shouting. 

“You _monster_. You absolute, unforgivable monster. I thought you…you’re still as _selfish_ as you ever were, even stone cold dead! Even as a fucking Force phantom!”

“Hux,” Ren cut him off with a plea, forsaking some of his supernatural mystique as he reached out to the other man with all the dignity of a spurned child, “you don’t understand—”

“I think I _do_ , actually!” Hux shot back, jabbing a finger at the specter’s face, not caring how mournful it looked. “You...you knew I would follow you. You knew how much I...you knew I would be so blinded, that I would follow you right off a cliff to my death.”

“Hurt” couldn’t even begin to encompass how Hux felt. There were far too many emotions roiling inside of him to be defined by any one word, but hurt was undeniably a _part_ of it. His heart and stomach both clenched, twisting painfully in a vise of longing and betrayal. 

“Please, Hux, just let me explain—”

“I don’t want to hear another word out of you!” Hux screamed out into the night, knowing he might look like a madman to anyone who couldn’t see who he was talking to. But that didn’t stop him from scraping the ground, closing his fingers around the largest rock he could find in his distressed haste, and hurling it right at his lover’s ghost. 

Unsurprisingly it sailed right through Ren, falling into the void and clattering quietly into the trees below. Ren’s form wavered slightly, like a reflection rippling in the water, but he didn’t break apart and disappear. Hux’s chest heaved, breath ragged in his throat. He stared at the specter, eyes wet and glistening even as he glared hateful daggers at him. Part of him wanted to snatch another rock, or perhaps some dirt or cold loam, throw more and more through Ren until he got the message and left Hux alone. 

“Why won’t you _disappear!_ ” Hux dry sobbed, kicking haplessly at the ground because he couldn’t lay a hand on Ren, the real source of his frustration. “Why _now_ , why after all this time have you—”

“Hux, listen to me—”

“Are you really so egotistical that you think I shouldn’t be allowed to live without you? That you needed to put me down like a rabid dog?” Hux ground the heel of his boot into the soft earth, angered flush rising in his face. “I thought you’d outgrown that ages ago, Ren—apparently, I was wrong!”

“That’s not it...”

“Then why did you try to _kill me?_ ” Hux’s voice resounded through the ensuing quiet. He felt like his composure was starting to fray at the edges. Strands of hair scattered over his forehead, in his eyes. His robe had loosened in his fit, coming open and falling to expose one naked shoulder. 

“I just wanted us to be together. After so much time apart,” Ren finally confessed, breaking the silence. His eyes, dark as ever, shone desperately in the moonlight. “That’s all I wanted.”

“You idiot,” Hux snarled, “do you really think you can pull the wool over my eyes so easily? I know what you’ve told me about the Force. Apparently you thought I hadn’t been listening all those times you prattled on about my metaphysical deficiencies.” 

As a man of discipline and logic, Hux had never particularly believed in the concept of life after death, not even when Ren had explained it to him with such sincerity, even drawing from alleged personal experiences. Hux was the type of man to only believe something if he could witness with his own two eyes, but well—now, he supposed, he couldn’t deny the existence of _spirits_ when one was floating before his very eyes. But if they existed, and Ren hadn’t been lying, that meant that everything else he said was true too. 

That those without the supernatural powers he possessed could never hope to manifest after death. 

“I know what I told you about Force-Nulls,” Ren said, apparently still able to read Hux’s mind from beyond the grave. “But I would have caught you as you fell into death. I’m strong enough that I would’ve been able to help you keep your form, stop your spirit from disappearing into the cosmos.”

“Says the specter who tried to trick me into _killing myself_ ,” Hux snapped, yanking his robe back up over his bare shoulder. “Why should I believe a single word coming out of your lying mouth?”

“Because, _Armitage_ , I love you.” 

Hux’s heart dropped out of his chest. No one, not amongst his subordinates nor his enemies, dared or cared to call him by his first name. Few who hadn’t seen his official dossier even _knew_ what it was. Hux himself hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in years, as his new title had taken precedence over his actual identity. Ren had been the only one to ever use it habitually since his father’s death, and then _only_ in private, with nobody around to hear him. 

Hearing it now, in that fond voice, woke something strange inside of Hux. His storm of emotions shifted again, now battering the shores in his mind with _sorrow_. 

Ren waited in silence for a moment, as if expecting Hux to answer. When he didn’t, the ghost let out a soft sigh that seemed to radiate through his entire intangible form. His arms fell to his sides. 

“I’ve missed you so much. Armitage. _Armitage_.” Ren whispered, like the mere name brought him some profound solace. “I thought…”

He drifted just a few meters beyond the edge of the cliff, and though a part of Hux wished to reach out and touch him, he kept his fists clenched firmly at his side. _Damn it_ , he was still furious with Ren. Ghost or not, he wasn’t about to clasp their hands together and kiss and make up and pretend that everything was alright. 

“Please believe me, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m just…” Ren’s immaculate, unnatural skin glowed in the moonlight, his lower lip trembling, still pearl-pink despite his washed out hue. “ _Armitage_ , I’m so alone. There’s no one, not a single soul in the entire galaxy, that I want to be with again but you.”

Hux crossed his arms tightly over his chest, covering up his aching heart. He wanted to look away, but he feared that if he did Ren would vanish completely, and despite himself—that wasn’t what he wanted.

“It was your choice to come back in this form. You could have let yourself fade away, then you wouldn’t have to feel anything ever again. You could’ve become a part of your beloved Force. As far as I’m concerned, you have no one to blame for your own loneliness but yourself.”

He was being cruel, but he wasn’t lying. It had been Ren’s choice and his choice alone to sacrifice himself in order to protect Hux, all those years ago. It had been his choice to overextend himself, to leave his mind and body vulnerable to the corruption, planted by his ex-Master, that he knew was slowly awakening inside of him. Hux, on the contrary, had no way of comprehending such an act would seal his lover’s fate at the time, but if he could go back and do it again, knowing what he did now, he would’ve just let the Resistance kill him. At the very least, his death would’ve been quicker than Ren’s had. 

The ghost glided forward, shimmering feet nearly settled atop the verge of the cliff. Almost like Ren could walk out of the air and onto solid ground and convince Hux he had really returned to his side. Like he had never left at all. 

Ren lifted his arms, reaching out to him once again. 

“It _hurts_ , Armitage, I’m sorry, I just needed you, and I thought this was the only way we could be together once more—”

“You think you are the only one who suffered?” Hux muttered, cutting him off. “Did you forget how I had to watch you waste away in your bed, _helpless,_ unable to do a single thing to save you or stop it? Or had your brain already rotted to nothing by that point?”

Ren flinched, as if Hux could even dream of doing him physical harm. His spectral form ruffled slightly in an invisible breeze, making it seem like he could blow away and vanish at any moment. Hux hunched his shoulders slightly, drawing his robe about himself and shuddering with imagined cold. 

Ren might not remember, but Hux could never forget. Never, not for as long as he lived, not even if he died and his mind dissolved into the Force. Hux didn’t think it was the kind of thing _anyone_ could forget, no matter how strong they might believe they were. 

No one, not even his worst enemies, should ever be subjected to the kind of horrors Hux had been forced to endure. The nightmarish, gut-wrenching sight of his Supreme Leader, his lover, his _Ren_ , withering to nothing in the bed they shared, disfigured by injuries that would never heal. 

The medics hadn’t been able to do a thing for him, no matter how loudly Hux screamed or how violently he threatened them. They’d insisted the affliction was far beyond any medical science known to the Order, even after Hux had them tortured for their uselessness. But inflicting pain hadn’t eased the agony Hux had felt, nor had it stemmed the inevitable tide creeping towards Ren from the deep, dark recesses of fate, intent on stealing him for their own. 

Hux had him brought from the medbay to their quarters, both out of desire to preserve his dignity and for his own sake—if Ren had to go, then Hux had wanted him to go as peacefully as possible, in a place where they both felt the most safe and comfortable together. 

But that hadn’t made anything better. Watching Ren slowly atrophy in the sanctuary of their quarters had almost been _worse_ than watching him pale and vanish against the sterile medbay sheets. Without thinking properly Hux had laid him to rest in their bed, only realizing what he had done when he held Ren’s seizing, emaciated form and begged him not to leave, not yet, _please_ not yet. Or when he’d dabbed tarry froth from the corners of Ren’s mouth and changed the bandages from his oozing wounds and forced himself not to look away as he held the emesis basin beneath his stained chin. Or when Ren had spat out garbled sentences in a language Hux didn’t understand, nor fully believed was real. Or when he’d gazed into eyes both blackened and jaundiced and sunken into their sockets, or when he’d stroked through hair lank and lifeless against the sweat-stained pillow. When he’d touched pallid cheeks now drawn and yellowed, like old, fragile candle wax that might disintegrate at any moment. When he’d raised a cup of water to lips that had once moved, full and pink, around sentiments meant only for Hux’s ears, that now cracked and bled with the mere effort of breathing. 

When he’d watched Ren _die_. 

Hux had so many good, _glowing_ memories of that bed, where he and Ren had lain for years wrapped up in each other’s arms. Where Hux had truly let go and allowed another person to take him apart, making him writhe and moan and shout his pleasures to the stars before carefully putting him back together. Where Hux had laughed, more than he did anywhere else, because Ren was genuinely _funny_ in private and liked to tell him his feet were too cold before proceeding to warm them up with kindling wiggles of his own, far larger toes. 

It had been the site of many firsts, both for their relationship and for Hux himself. It had been where he’d first had an orgasm he could _genuinely_ describe as toe-curling. It had been where Ren had spent his first night as Supreme Leader, deciding to celebrate freedom from his Master’s yoke with the only other man in the galaxy he wanted at his side. It had been where Millicent had made first contact with Ren, jumping up into his lap and rubbing her flank against his stomach and formally accepting him as a part of her owner’s life. And, most significantly, it had been where Hux had first gazed into Ren’s imperfectly-formed yet perfectly fitting face as he slept beside him, making him realize this brutal, _lonely_ man trusted Hux just as much as he had come to trust him. 

All these were memories Hux would much rather dwell upon than the unpleasant ones that persisted whenever he thought of his lost lover. But thanks to his own foolishness, his selfishness in the face of the inevitable, every last one had become forever tarnished, _despoiled_ by the image of Ren rotting, _suffering_ in their bed as he futilely clung to life. Even now, whenever Hux lay down to sleep in his own quarters, even with the sheets changed and washed a thousand times since then, he never forgot it. 

He could never escape the reality that Ren had exchanged his life for him. Hux should’ve died in a barrage of Resistance fire, but Ren had saved him, erecting a shield of crackling, scarlet energy that’d absorbed every last shot aimed to strike his lover through the heart. At the time Hux had watched in awe, overwhelmed by Ren’s power and devotion, but unaware of just how hard he’d pushed himself to save his life. Only later, when they had both escaped on a rescue shuttle to regroup, did he realize the toll it had taken on both Ren’s body and mind. The Force had sucked away his life without mercy, as if Ren had reneged on some sort of deal with it that he now had to repay in spades. The very thing that had empowered Ren had turned on him like a vicious dog, enervating his body and mind until there was nothing left. Until he couldn’t do anything but die, even as Hux held his withered remains and screamed his lungs raw, begging Ren not to leave him. 

That had been a long time ago. Not _too_ long, if one were to really look at the time frame, but long enough for Hux to begin healing. But here Ren was, returned as a ghost yet looking far healthier, more _whole_ than Hux remembered seeing him last, prying open those scars into fresh, bleeding wounds. 

“I never wanted to leave you alone,” Ren whispered, voice carried on the breeze welling up from below the drop-off, “I thought I had full control of my abilities. I thought I could bend the Force to my will without consequence. I wanted to show I was stronger than it, a true _Master_. I failed, Hux. I never wanted to leave you alone.”

Hux wished to believe him so badly. But even Ren’s tender words couldn’t erase the pain that rushed through to the forefront of his mind when he gazed into his eyes and took in his flawless, unsullied face. 

“I had to watch you _die_ , Ren. A slow, excruciating death. You...you think you can just send me careening down a cliff, kill me in an instant, and make it all better? Erase all that I’ve suffered?” Hux whimpered, tears finally swelling to burst out of his eyes. Silvery tracks crawled down his cheeks, glimmering in the moonlight, a mirror to the ethereal glow emanating from his lover’s form. 

Hux still remembered too much about the very moment he lost Ren forever. He remembered how the corruption had spread throughout his face and chest, hollowing his bones and collapsing his flesh. He remembered how the bruising in his skin had sunk deeper and deeper until it ate away at him, how the long-healed scar given to Ren by the scavenger girl had pulsed red and purple like an angry vein, before eventually turning black and glistening with infection. He remembered how those dark eyes he treasured so deeply had glossed over only with pain, irises cloudy and flat and robbed of their enthralling depth. He remembered cradling Ren’s body as he grew cold and limp, as shadows sunk past the point of no return in his ribs and cheeks, last gasps of vitality disintegrating before Hux's very eyes. 

He could not remember, in that moment, what it felt like to embrace someone brimming with life and flushed with love. He could not remember anything but the sickly corpse in his arms and for that he’d sobbed and screamed and clung to Ren until the attending medics pulled him from Hux’s weak and trembling embrace and laid fresh sheets over his disfigured form.

He’d been appointed Supreme Leader the very next cycle. 

Hux scrubbed at the tears with his fist, hissing at his own frailty, how easily the old memories still wounded him. A man of his high standing should never cry, not even in private. Hux thought he’d wrung out his own sorrow ages ago, and yet it had taken only the sight of his lover and the memory of his death to bring it flooding forth anew. 

“You’re alone too, Armitage. I can sense it.” Ren’s eyes glistened with sympathy, understanding the same harrowing sorrow that twisted through Hux’s chest. “You’ve been alone ever since I passed. Standing at the top, with no one at your side. I should never have left you on your own, but I just want to make it right. I want us to be together again, no matter what.”

 _Stars_ , Hux thought as he dried his swollen cheeks, the way Ren spoke almost made it seem like a sensible idea. Of course, he had always been able to tempt Hux with relative ease. That air of mystery, that unpredictable temper, not to mention his physical attributes—glossy, pettable hair and sumptuous lips, roughly-hewn yet boyish good looks—all had drawn Hux’s interest since the very beginning. So perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that, despite himself, a part of Hux wanted to let Ren spirit him away to the realm of death. He wanted to trust Ren to erase his pain, to close the bleeding wounds back up. 

“Won’t you come with me? It’ll be painless. It won’t be anything like you saw. You’ll lose consciousness before even striking the ground.” Ren pressed. “Even if there’s pain, it’ll only be for a second. Then you’ll be with me forever. I’ll catch you as you fall, I swear on the Force.”

Much as he didn’t trust the Force that had taken his lover from his side, Hux felt almost ready to sink into Ren’s offered arms and let him guide him back over the edge in the comfort of the embrace he’d missed for so long. To _trust_ that Ren would carry him to the next life, would keep him from losing himself in the cosmos’ fathomless singularity. 

But just as he was about to finally give in, Hux took a moment to reflect on everything he had accomplished since Ren’s death. His lover wasn’t entirely wrong—there had been pain, yes. There had been moments of weakness. The flat of a monomolecular blade pressed up against his inner wrist. A blaster on the bedside table. A battle plan tabled because it was far too risky to attempt, but never actually discarded. Sometimes, when the loneliness had reared up and threatened to crush him, Hux had considered it. _Wanted_ it. 

But he’d always managed to push through, carrying on like the good, hardened soldier he was. He’d risen above his own pain and loss and routed the Resistance at every turn, decimated their fleets, turned their closest allies over to his side with his silver tongue. Now, with victory well within his grasp, he wasn’t about to give up, no matter how sweetly Ren spun it. 

He couldn’t possibly, not when he’d already come so far. 

“I’m sorry,” Hux whispered, pulling out of Ren’s reach. “ But I can’t go with you.”

“Armitage…”

“No,” he said as he shook his head, “listen to me.” 

Hux lifted his fist, eyes alight, as if he were giving one of his impassioned speeches to an audience of one. 

“We’ve almost got them, Ren. Finally, after all these years. I’m on the verge of _crushing_ them for good.” Hux’s lip trembled, eyes shining even as he tried to keep himself. “I can’t. Not yet. Not until my work is finished. Not until I’ve made them _pay_ for what they did to you.”

Hux held his other arm out, as if gesturing to the sweeping landscapes and vast swaths of the galaxy now under his command. He brought them to the forefront of his mind, urging them towards the ghost of his lover, hoping he would understand. 

“Can you see it, Ren? From beyond the boundaries of the mortal plane? Can you see everything that I’ve conquered for you? Everything that I’m doing to carry on your will?” Hux’s voice broke as he took a step forward and raised both hands, reaching out to frame Ren’s translucent cheeks. He probably couldn’t feel anything from his dead lover, but still he shivered at the imagined touch. Ren bowed his head and let it rest in Hux’s palms, hair wafting about his face in smoky tendrils as if he were sinking through moon-streaked water only Hux could pull him from. 

“Your— _our_ vision of the galaxy.” Hux brushed his thumb over Ren’s cheek, as he had when he was still alive, used to drying his lover’s tormented tears. “A world of order, a legacy built strong by our hands, meant to last generations, unchallenged and undaunted. I’m so close, Ren. I can’t give in now, not for anything.”

 _Not even for you_ went unsaid, but Hux could tell by Ren’s expression that he still heard it. He lifted his head out of Hux’s palms, looking him in the eyes as he floated backwards, again putting space between them. 

“I understand. You’ve never been one to leave business unfinished. I should’ve known—when you have your mind set on something, you’ll always see it through to the end.”

Hux smiled softly. 

“Did you really think I would trust my empire with anyone else? Much has changed, Ren, but there’s still not another soul in the galaxy capable of leading it as well as I can.”

“Of course. Then, I suppose…” Ren trailed off, throat visibly tightening though he hadn’t need for air. “This is goodbye? For real, this time?”

Silence regrew between them. Hux swallowed, eyes flicking away. This should be easier. After all, he had already seen Ren die. Watching his ghost merely fade away to join the lifestream of the Force should be far less painful than clutching onto his fouled, withering corpse. This was nothing more than a remnant of the man he used to now. No matter how much he resembled Ren in his prime. The one drawn from Hux’s best, most cherished memories. 

And yet, when he tried to speak, to turn away the ghost for good, the words stuck in his chest. A fresh wave of tears trickled down his face and he looked back at Ren, who had drifted back away, suspended beyond the edge of the cliff. Hux clamped a hand over his mouth, but his palm couldn’t muffle the harsh sobs that spilled from his lips. 

“D-Damn it, Kylo… _wait_.”

He couldn’t do it. Bidding his lover goodbye for the second time was too much for Hux to bear. Even after all these years, he still wasn’t strong enough to stand alone. He still wanted Kylo by his side. He still didn’t feel completely whole without him, no matter how many planets he conquered, no matter how many of his enemies he crushed. 

“Is there truly no other way?” Hux croaked once he found enough air to speak. His eyes hurt, swollen red with sorrow. “Can’t you just...come with me? You’re a ghost, can’t you go anywhere in the galaxy you’d like?” Hux suggested, immediately realizing how silly and desperate it sounded and feeling ashamed. But to his surprise, Kylo’s eyebrows perked up slightly and he tilted his head. 

“You...you would not object to that?”

“W-what?” Hux’s eyes widened, his hand falling from his mouth. A sudden spark of irritation, almost welcome in its familiarity, rose up in him and cut across the thick of his despair. “ _Kylo_ , if...if you’re about to tell me you tried to get me to _jump off a cliff_ before you even considered haunting me—”

“No! I considered. It’s just...it’s not _ideal,_ ” Kylo grunted, swiftly defusing Hux’s rant, “I can’t manifest in the physical plane for extended periods without some kind of _tether_. An object, or place, or person.”

“So tether yourself to me.” Hux wiped his nose with the butt of his palm, letting out a cross between a laugh and a sniffle. “I’d like that a lot more than further assassination attempts.”

Kylo’s nose wrinkled in disdain.

“It’s not so simple. I’ll feed off your lifeforce. I’ll be a _parasite_ ,” he moaned. “I’m not sure if I like that.”

Kylo almost sounded a little _petulant_ , and Hux could’ve cried again at how ordinary that was. He was acting like himself again, flaws and all, shedding the last of any supernatural eminence. It was like they were picking up right where they’d left off, before Kylo had fallen ill. Back when they could laugh and cry and fuck and be human. 

“I wouldn’t care if you stuck to me like a leech and supped upon my blood. Whatever it takes, I want you by my side. I want you to watch as I crush the Resistance in your name.” He took a deep breath. “Please, Kylo.”

Now, Hux’s own offer hung between them. Kylo stared back at Hux, expression suddenly unreadable, which was strange for a man who had always let every emotion rise to the surface. At least, whenever he was with Hux. 

“You’ll have to open yourself to me. Body and mind,” Kylo finally said. “Are you ready to do that again, Armitage?”

Hux remembered how he’d wished that he could help Kylo, when he sat at his bedside all those years ago. Lamenting how he hadn’t the power to just take Kylo’s soul up into himself, to save it from the rotting, corrupted body, to keep it safe inside of him so Kylo could cheat death and stay with him. A mere fantasy, born out of desperation and the long sleepless nights Hux spent watching the unsteady rise and fall of Kylo’s chest, listening to the painful raspy drag of his breathing to ensure he wouldn’t miss the last. 

“I am.”

Kylo closed his eyes, either in focus or contemplation, for such a long moment that Hux almost thought to say something. But just as he cleared his throat Kylo opened them wide, the longing black suddenly replaced with a radiant, red glow that completely overwhelmed the faint translucency of the rest of his body. It spread past the boundaries of his eye sockets, bleeding out and consuming everything in its path until his entire body was afire with brilliant plasma. 

A glowing, bloodred phantom should have been terrifying, especially when it started to stride towards Hux with purpose. But he felt no fear at all as Kylo’s blazing boots cut through the still grass, bringing him to Hux as he stretched his hands out towards him. Any rational man would’ve turned tail and fled back to the safety of the encampment, but Hux had just made a covenant with a ghost. He was far from rationality.

Of course he was. He was in love. 

Kylo shone brighter with each step he took, until all of his features were lost in the glow, as if Hux were staring at the core of his saber’s crossblades. His eyes watered, straining to stay open and behold the full, unfettered sight of his lover’s soul. It was as if he were staring at the last glory of a dying sun, as all of its power siphoned into him to take refuge. 

It reminded Hux, unsurprisingly, of when he’d first fired Starkiller. How he’d reforged the natural state of the galaxy to suit his own means. How he’d created a new order, drained the life from the old and inert to make something _truly_ spectacular. No longer had he been a passive player in the game of galactic power. He’d forever wrought his own, catastrophic mark on those who had defied him. 

Yet somehow Kylo’s molten, luminous body looked even more beautiful in Hux’s eyes than his magnum opus had. 

Hux arched his spine as blazing arms curled around his waist, as if preparing to dip back in an elaborate dance. One last gasp of mistrust flickered across his mind as Kylo embraced him, spread his fire throughout Hux’s body, but a moment later it extinguished in a puff of smoke. Hux closed his eyes and leaned into Kylo’s arms, opening his mind to another person for the first time in years. 

The red ebbed like a pulse even through his shut eyelids, slowly finding resonance with Hux’s heartbeat, so profoundly that for a moment he thought his chest would explode. 

Hux felt Kylo’s disembodied lips slide against his, their bodies uniting in one glorious bridge of passion. Then all of a sudden Hux snapped his eyes wide open and Kylo vanished into him, leaving nothing but the abruptly dark Samsaran landscape and the echo burnt Hux’s corneas in his wake. His heart glowed red in his chest, through his skin and casting shadows against his ribs and veins, before it slowly faded, became a part of him.

Hux’s legs abruptly gave out and he fell to the ground, robe fluttering around him in a silky pool. For a moment he could only stare, wondering if it had all been some kind of tangible dream. But when he wrapped his arms around himself, he felt the new but welcome warmth nest in his heart, taking up residence. Something familiar, finally smoothing over the old wounds Hux thought had healed but had only ever numbed with time. 

The interlocking rings at the end of his necklace shimmered, imbued by an unseen presence that etched fresh oaths of vibrant red into the polished silver. Clasping them tightly to his chest, Hux tipped his head back and looked up at the star-spotted sky, any lingering worries soothed by whispers of love and thanks in the back of his mind.

And for the first time in years, he once again felt whole. 

**Author's Note:**

> Still kind of dealing with the confidence issues, so idk how to really feel about this. Kind of want to return to fluffier/less intense stuff soon, as well as shorter fics. My brain hurts. 
> 
> Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/).


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